US, UK snooped on Italian govt – report

American and British special services spied on Italy’s leadership and Defense Ministry, Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, told the L`Espresso weekly.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on several
“European governments, including the Italian one,” Greenwald told
the magazine.

The revelation comes a day after another Italian news outlet,
Corriere della Sera daily, reported that the country’s spy
watchdog COPASIR learned details of large-scale monitoring of Italians by the NSA.
Telephone and computer communications of “millions of
Italians” were reportedly being gathered.

British security agencies were also spying on Italians’ phone
calls, e-mails and internet traffic via the Government
Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) data surveillance program
codenamed Tempora – which was earlier exposed by the Guardian
newspaper. The UK exchanged the data with NSA, the weekly writes
in the preview of an article to be printed in full Friday.

Security services normally refer to possible threats of terrorism
to justify their surveillance activities. However, documents
leaked by former NSA contractor Snowden prove that it is not
always the case, L`Espresso writes.

For instance, London was also interested in information regarding
the “political intentions” of foreign governments, including that
on possible proliferation of weapon of mass destruction –
nuclear, chemical and bacteriological – among “hostile nations.”
British priorities also included advanced military technology
which could include Rome’s trade deals with Arab countries, the
magazine said. L`Espresso also suggests that the information
could possibly have been used to cause damage to British
businesses’ competitors.

Speaking about possible reasons behind London’s interest in
spying on NATO member Italy, the magazine recalled the
differences in views between the two countries prior to the
intervention in Libya in 2011. The then-Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi opposed the alliance’s mission and became the first
Western leader to voice serious doubts about success of the NATO
operation.

According to the weekly, Italian intelligence was aware of their
British colleagues’ activities but no further details were given
in the report.

Documents confirming NSA’s snooping on Italian government and key
ministers may be made public in the next few months, L`Espresso
said.

Foreign security agencies tapped undersea fiber optic cables,
including the South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3
(SeaMeWe3) and the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4
(SeaMeWe4) cables, which have terminals in Italy, the magazine
reported Thursday.

When asked to comment on the L`Espresso report, Prime Minister
Enrico Letta said that it was “inconceivable and unacceptable
that there should be acts of espionage of this type.”

Greenwald, an American investigative journalist based in Brazil,
has been steadily releasing swathes of secret documents from
Snowden, and announced earlier this week many more revelations to
come.

A day earlier, a new scandal over the NSA’s alleged snooping on
Europeans erupted. The German government said it had potential
evidence that American agencies tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. Berlin has demanded
explanations from US officials, adding that if the information
proved to be true, it would undermine relations between the two
powers. Merkel called President Barack Obama by phone to complain
about the snooping, but he assured her that his country was not
monitoring her communications.